China has colorful folk sports such as wrestling, tug-of-war, weight-lifting and hand wrestling; kicking shuttlecock, rope skipping and swinging; I-go and chess; vaudeville, taming animals and so on.
Sports that showed strength of the participants were mainly popular among laborers. Take wrestling for instance, laborers often held the contest during breaks. The rule of the game was not that strict: one man vs. one man, or two to three vs. one, the one who fell down to the ground was the loser. It was the same case with weight lifting. Laborers performed weight lifting with things at hand such as a gunnysack of grains, a rock or a big jar during breaks. They contested on not only how much they could lifted, but also how much they could carry on back, and the games had much to do with the labor of lifting and carrying.
Another common sports game that showed strength was hand wrestling, in which the two contestants stood right foot by right foot, right hands clasped together; left feet braced; left hands behind. At the word "Go!" each tried to unbalance the other; that is, make him lift or move one of his feet. A lift or a shift ended the round. Battles were for best out of 3 or 5 rounds.
A collective sports game that shows strength was tug-of-war. Before the game, a thick and long rope was prepared with a piece of red cloth hung in the middle. A dividing line was drawn on the point of the ground that the red cloth pointed to. The two teams with equal headcounts grasped tightly the two ends of the rope respectively, and tried to tug the rope towards their own side when hearing the order of the referee. The team that had dragged the red cloth to its side was the winner. The game usually lasted three rounds with shift of ground each round, and the team who won two rounds was the final winner.
General contests of sporting skills include horse races and horsemanship. These sports activities were seldom practiced among the Han nationality but favored by the minorities due to their special living environments. Historical records show that in the Tang and Song dynasties (618-1279), playing polo was prevalent in imperial courts, armies and even among ordinary people. The participants were divided into two teams and each participant on horseback held a stick. The two teams tried to hit one ball. All the balls were made of light wood, the inside was hollowed out and the outside was decorated with colors or various patterns. The court was flat and solid and has goals. The two teams were in different clothes to distinguish from each other.
The majority of the ancient acrobatics can be seen in today's acrobatics, martial arts, qigong, and circus. Besides, in ancient China there were taming of birds and taming of animals. In the taming of birds, various kinds of birds gave performances such as holding in mouth a flag, holding in mouth a coin, opening a box with the mouth, etc. In the taming of animals, monkeys played a key role, and most circuses used dogs, sheep and other animals to accompany the performance of monkeys. The monkeys could play various stunts
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